Sanity versus "biblical truth"
2007-Nov-29, Thursday 01:22![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Quickie, aimed specifically at two people[1] but of general interest to all who value decent science education,
nannyo excellent post about her encounter with the people that run the Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm. I am very scared that that place exisits within the UK. On a similar vein, those that haven't seen it should probably read Scalzi's report of his visit to the Creation Museum. Does anyone have any brain bleach?
Heh: I do like this from the comments at Scalzi's report though:
ETA:
innerbrat has put on her day job hat and got into contact with them, removing the bit that she studies evolutionary morphology from her NHM email sigline. Go Debi!
[1]
innerbrat and
davegodfrey based on their regular postings on such topics.
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Heh: I do like this from the comments at Scalzi's report though:
Galatians 4:24So, um, the bible, if literally true, is literally a metaphor according to St Paul?
These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants.
ETA:
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[1]
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no subject
Date: 2007-Nov-29, Thursday 22:56 (UTC)A lot more could be said about each of these points but that's as best I can summarise them here. The point is not that evolution is discredited, but that it is open to questioning and refinement as a theory - it shouldn't simply be held as scientific fact.
no subject
Date: 2007-Nov-30, Friday 11:02 (UTC)Define 'transitional'. There are plenty of hominid species that except mosaics of charcaters from different groups.
Which finds?
No. It's your claim. You back it up. Give an archaeological (or palaeontological) find that disproves evolution.
Biologists generally accept 'life' to imply self-replicating organic matter. How is that a lack of concept?
There is plenty of knowledge about the evolution of altruism.
You appear to be simply recycling old, worn thin soundbites from poorly researched Creationist sites. You also misused the word theory as
no subject
Date: 2007-Nov-30, Friday 15:59 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-Nov-30, Friday 17:01 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-Nov-30, Friday 17:45 (UTC)What has been 'thoroughly debunked' in what I say above?
or are very active areas of research, where we have lots of interesting ideas being tested.
Yeah, and where did I say otherwise?
I'm not making any sort of Creationist argument or attempting to discredit evolution as a theory. I said it's a theory with loopholes in it and, as you say, there are active areas of research that presumably are looking to flesh out the theory even further. Where do we disagree, exactly?
no subject
Date: 2007-Nov-30, Friday 11:37 (UTC)Darwin himself was adamant that natural selection was never meant to be the only mechanism of evolution, although this has pretty much become evolutionist dogma.
No it hasn't. Darwin came up with Sexual Selection, which has become an active area of research since the New Synthesis in the 1930s. Mootoo Kimura's Neutral theory of genetic evolution is very important in DNA classification studies. Then there's non-adaptationism, beloved of Stephen Jay Gould, and evo-devo.
But at the root of all this is the idea that organisms vary, and these variations have different fitnesses which affect their reproductive success.
Evolution is a fact and a theory. Fossils show that living organisms change through time. Natural Selection (in addition to the things I mentioned) is the model that explains how this happenned.
no subject
Date: 2007-Nov-30, Friday 16:14 (UTC)Mrs. Darwin
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him-
Something about that Chimpanzee over there
reminds me of you.
no subject
Date: 2007-Nov-30, Friday 16:56 (UTC)